Product configuration is an aspect of industries that offer customizable products with a wide variety of features. The process of selecting a configuration, or features that include a configuration, is used in multiple aspects of marketing and sales, order management and production planning, and product development. Examples include virtually constructing an ideal product (e.g., a vehicle) using a build-and-price application or selecting features for a prototype.
The product definition or product offering in the automotive industry is often of staggering dimensionality and size. It is common for a vehicle to be offered with thirty or more optional feature categories, such as paint color, engine size, radio type, and wheel style. Allowing a user to quickly explore a complex space that could include more than 1030 valid configurations is a challenging problem in constraints programming.